Issue 45 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aug/Sept 2022 Tidewie USV Tupan | Performance monitoring | Bayonet 350 | UAVs insight | Xponential 2022 | ULPower UL350i and UL350iHPS | Elroy Air Chaparral | Gimbals | Clogworks Dark Matter

28 overlapped with the structural welding of the first prototype. “Also, software development ran in parallel with physical design,” Joyeux says. “And like the vessel’s mechanics and hardware, the software was also developed iteratively, starting with the very basic controls, user interface [UI] architecture and functions, and was built up from there. “Naturally we had an overall plan for the software architecture, but we updated that as different projects and potential user needs arose.” The Tupan’s first sea trial was in early August 2020, in Rio’s Guanabara Bay; extensive mechanical, electrical and software tests had already been run on each of its subsystems. The bay and unsheltered waters around it offered plenty of wind, strong currents, traffic and salt spray to prove the USV’s robustness in autonomous navigation and data- gathering, and the team determined it was ready for service in December that year, with the UAV’s landing capability also being demonstrated in that month. “Six months later, we demonstrated the system to [state-owned petroleum company] Petrobras, an expected customer, along with the ability to safely hand control of the Tupan from one console to another,” Coelho adds. A qualification process for the Tupan was also carried out in partnership with Petrobras, and involved inspecting the offshore infrastructure operated by the company, as well as carrying out a launch & recovery procedure from a platform supply vessel, to demonstrate the USV’s operational capabilities. This vessel is the sole Tupan built so far, as TideWise’s immediate plans are centred not on production and sale of USVs but on ‘robotics as a service’, with the team carrying out missions on behalf of clients, and actionable information being the actual product sold. “Its comparatively small size has a tendency to make people underestimate its capabilities, but it complies with the MASS [Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships] Code of Practice, and is more than capable of handling a wide range of missions both near-shore and far offshore,” Coelho comments. System architecture The Tupan is divided into two compartments. The ‘engine room’ runs from the transom to a watertight bulkhead in the middle of the USV, and at the front is the ‘payload compartment’, although this section also holds the batteries. The engine room holds a 9 kW diesel generator, AC-DC power converters, battery chargers, some comms equipment, and the propulsion and steering system. The payload compartment meanwhile has a 19 in rack that fits 10U-height electronics enclosures – more than enough volume to fit multi-beam echo sounders, Lidars, acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) and other USV geophysics sensors. Companion computers, data storage drives and other devices can also be fitted as TideWise or customers wish. Naturally, the moon pool is accessible from the top deck, as is a single-point lifting structure for the vessel, mooring cleats, an antenna mast, and payloads such as a gimballed platform from which UAVs can be launched and landed. While the payload capacity is nominally August/September 2022 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The Tupan consists of an engine compartment, a payload compartment, a moon pool, a landing pad and a comms mast disposed about an aluminium hull The landing pad is aluminium and mounted atop a gyro-stabilised platform for safe launch and recovery of survey UAVs